Bolt says tight schedule slowed down 100-meter sprinters

Rio de Janeiro: Usain Bolt rarely complains about going too fast. After the rushed road to Sunday night’s 100-meter final, he had to make an exception. Faced with a turnaround time of barely over an hour between the semifinal and final, Bolt had trouble gearing up to be at his best for the marquee event of the Olympics.

He won his record-setting third straight gold medal , but his post-race comments were tinged with slams about the scheduling. “I don’t know who decided that,” Bolt said. “It was really stupid. So, that’s why the race was slow. There’s no way you can run and go back around and run fast times again.” It was a decision made with broadcasters in mind more than runners. In the recent past, 100-meter sprinters have been given more than two hours between semifinals and finals.

“It’s the first time I’ve had to jog to the warmup area to get ready for the final,” Bolt said. He said after the semifinal, he felt great. I was like ‘Yo, I probably could run a fast time,'” he said. For him, “fast” often equates to something in the world-record range of 9.58 seconds. And “slow” would qualify as the 9.81-second time he ran to win Sunday’s gold medal. It wasn’t among the 10 fastest times he’s ever put on the board. He wasn’t the only one complaining. American Justin Gatlin, the silver medalist, said the quick turnaround sapped his strength so much, he couldn’t even think about winning. “I didn’t because I was tired going into the finals and I was just like ‘let me focus on what I need to focus on,'” he said. “We really only had 30 minutes to get ready for the finals.” Track’s governing body, the IAAF, sets the schedule and the International Olympic Committee signs off on it.

“If they’re happy, we’re happy,” said IOC spokesman Mark Adams. In the most widely cited case of schedule shifting, the opening round of the women’s 200 was moved from Monday evening to the day session at the request of one of America’s best-known athletes, Allyson Felix, who wanted to try for gold medals both the 200 and the 400. The 400 final is Monday night. It was considered a win-win for the Olympics and NBC, which pays the most sizable chunk of the USD 4.1 billion in worldwide broadcast rights the IOC received for the 2014 and 2016 Olympics. More (AP)